District 11 City Council Member Raul Arias says the proposed ordinance aims to provide bars in the city the chance to increase revenue during special events.<\/p>\n
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Some Downtown Jacksonville bars could soon have the option to serve alcohol later into the night.<\/p>\n
District 11 City Council member Raul Arias introduced Ordinance 2026-0063 during Tuesday night\u2019s City Council meeting.<\/p>\n
If approved, the ordinance would allow bars in the North Core, City Center and Sports and Entertainment Districts to serve alcohol until 3 a.m. Currently, bars citywide must stop serving at 2 a.m.<\/p>\n
Bars outside of those designated downtown districts would still be required to follow the 2 a.m. cutoff.<\/p>\n
Arias said the proposal is aimed at supporting downtown businesses, especially during large events, while still giving owners the choice of whether staying open later makes financial sense.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s say we get a Super Bowl in Jacksonville one day, we can stay open until 3 in the morning,\u201d Arias said. \u201cLet\u2019s say we have a concert or other big events. It gives the businesses the option to say, you know what, I wanna stay open an extra hour or two.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat way, it could generate more revenues and sales, which also leads to higher payrolls, more wage increases for employees, so it\u2019s an overall economic driver, just not just for the business but also the employees as well too,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Some downtown business owners say the extra hour could make a difference during busy weekends and major events.<\/p>\n
Tony Draper, the owner of Pour Taproom in downtown Jacksonville, said anything that helps keep customers downtown longer is a positive.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything you do to help businesses down here to stay open is great,\u201d Draper said.<\/p>\n
Draper said his business has seen more weekend traffic than he initially expected after opening downtown.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re definitely weekend heavy, which surprised me opening in downtown,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Like Councilman Arias, Draper says staying open later during major sporting events could be beneficial.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen there are special events like nighttime Jaguars games, like that Monday night Chiefs game,\u201d Draper said. \u201cIt made a lot of sense to stay open till 3 a.m. because people are out celebrating.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Draper said extended hours also come with added costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s expensive to stay open,\u201d he said. \u201cSo you have, as a business owner, you have to have the volume to justify, you know, being open that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arias said he intentionally drew the boundaries of the ordinance to exclude residential neighborhoods, including areas like the Cathedral District, to limit concerns about increased foot traffic late at night.<\/p>\n
The ordinance must still go before the committee before any final decision is made. Arias said he may hold public notice meetings if concerns from the community arise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"District 11 City Council Member Raul Arias says the proposed ordinance aims to provide bars in the city…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-134251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}